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I don't get it. If the dominant wind is 90 deg to the runway, why not take 34 instead of that monkey bar approach to 16?

Good question. I don'know, but I offer 3 hypothesis:
1- Dominant winds 90 deg to the runway doesn't mean that it is always 90 degrees. Some days the wind may favor RWY 16, and when landing with a 737 in a 5500ft slippery RWY you don't want to give away 1 kt of ground-speed at touchdown.
2- There may be terrain clearance issues with a single-engine go-around facing the mountains.
3- The approach to RWY 16 is so much more fun!!!

--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

BBC is reporting 5 new pieces of possible debris found on beaches in Madagascar by debris hunter Blaine Gibson. Not confirmed as debris but share the same characteristics as other pieces he's found that have been.
Apparently two of the pieces show burn marks but isn't clear whether they came from before or after crash, or even as the article mentions, whether the pieces had been put on a beach bonfire.

I'm obviously not Gabriel, but I think it's nearly impossible for a "gentle glide" to occur in that scenario.

Things to consider are what happens to the trim if the pilots are out? What happens to the FBW and protections if the engines are out and there is no one to turn on any of the auxiliary and emergency systems?

There has been one similar accident on a 737 (Helios, 2005) and maybe you can look into it, though there was a flight attendant with aspirations to become a pilot in the cockpit when it crashed, but with an oxygen tank that was running out.

Need Gabriel or someone to hypothesize (or restate from earlier in the thread). What would happen to a modern airliner in one of these lost pressurization-crew dies-plane runs out of gas scenarios.

Is the loss of power going to eventually lead to some sort of spiral dive (or the p-word causing a potentially steep descent), or is it going to "glide gently down".

It's hard to tell, but I would say that a best case scenario is that the plane stabilizes in a shallow turn and shallow descent at a speed that is about the speed the plane had when it lost power and a descent rate of a few K ft/min. Yes, the glide may look gentle, as the United at Sioux City looked until it contacted the runway. Water (instead of runway) would make things just worse.

--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

What would happen to a modern airliner in one of these lost pressurization-crew dies-plane runs out of gas scenarios.

Is the loss of power going to eventually lead to some sort of spiral dive (or the p-word causing a potentially steep descent), or is it going to "glide gently down".

I don't see how it's going to glide down in some wings-level attitude. To begin with, the engines are not going to fail simultaneously, so there is thrust assymetry. The FCC's will apply some compensation but will not cancel out the yaw entirely. Pilot input is needed. So I expect some a side order of roll with that. Then, when the second engine dies, there is no further compensation, no autopilot, no yaw damping, no envelope protections. The ACE's are still powered and awaiting pilot input, but a lot of good that does when the pilot himself is 'offline'. There is also no longer trim reference speed (TRS)-based autotrim, all trim must be manually entered. So you have roll excursion and an out of trim airplane descending as airspeed decays. We discussed this waaaay back and I think Gabriel suggested a sort of wide spiral with phugoid cycles. At some point the roll might become a spiral dive...

They have one of the flaps now. If they can tell the flap position at impact, and if it was stowed, that would suggest an absence of pilot control. Although, no main hydraulics, no flap extension...

Latest report from the ATSB indicates that the flaps were most likely retracted and the rate of descent accelerated to about 25,000 fpm. If that's true, there's probably little chance of finding any large, intact wreckage, let alone the flight recorders.

Latest report from the ATSB indicates that the flaps were most likely retracted and the rate of descent accelerated to about 25,000 fpm. If that's true, there's probably little chance of finding any large, intact wreckage, let alone the flight recorders.

Lacking any link.... I guess that they can tell the flaps setting by damage evidence in the very flaps parts that they found. But how on Earth can they tell the vertical speed?

--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

Oddball question for you plane experts . . . does a B777 aircraft in its entirety (meaning fully built w/ avionics wings etc etc) contain any rather peculiar or rare metals or substances - for instance uranium as weight/ballast (I totally made that example up simply to illustrate my question)?

Oddball question for you plane experts . . . does a B777 aircraft in its entirety (meaning fully built w/ avionics wings etc etc) contain any rather peculiar or rare metals or substances - for instance uranium as weight/ballast (I totally made that example up simply to illustrate my question)?

Ironingy, at KAUS recently, I noticed some flat, black, plastic water containers stacked on a cart...

Oddball question for you plane experts . . . does a B777 aircraft in its entirety (meaning fully built w/ avionics wings etc etc) contain any rather peculiar or rare metals or substances - for instance uranium as weight/ballast (I totally made that example up simply to illustrate my question)?

Older 747 aircraft used depleted uranium in the tail for counterbalance weights. I do not know if uranium is still used.